


Mistletoe

by paperstorm



Series: 12 Days of Stucky Christmas [3]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Brooklyn, Canonical Character Death, Christmas, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Bucky Barnes/Steve Rogers, M/M, POV Bucky Barnes, Pre-Captain America: The First Avenger, Pre-War, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-16
Updated: 2019-12-16
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:33:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21742267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paperstorm/pseuds/paperstorm
Summary: Part 3 of the 12 Days of Stucky Christmas series. Steve misses Sarah, Bucky tries to help.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Series: 12 Days of Stucky Christmas [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1559701
Comments: 17
Kudos: 73





	Mistletoe

_1936_  
  
There are lights strung in the boulevard trees, and baubles in the shops, and a general air of cheer and good will and all that typical Christmas sparkle. People on the street wish him happy holidays; complete strangers he just happens to walk past or stand next to on a curb while they wait for the light to change. He returns it, with a smile he hopes is convincing. It’s difficult, this year, to truly get into the spirit of it all.  
  
Bucky shivers, tugging his coat tighter around his shoulders as a gust of wind sends a chill up his spine. In front of him, two young boys are having an animated discussion about what they’d like Santa to bring them for Christmas, while their mother holds a baby close to her chest to protect its tiny body from the cold. Bucky walks away from them, looking out for cars and then crossing the street in the middle of it instead of at the intersection. He heads a few more blocks north, shivering the whole way, until he reaches the store he’d seen an advert for last week. Discounted Christmas decorations. They don’t have a lot of money to burn, usually just enough to get them through, and Steve would be angry if he spent too much on something frivolous. But if it doesn’t cost too much, maybe he won’t be. Maybe Bucky will be able to make him smile.  
  
Two months since Sarah died. Bucky could count on two or three hands the number of times Steve has truly smiled since she took her final breath on October the 15th. Not just a simple curve of his mouth, but the real kind of smiling, the kind that widens his nose and reaches his eyes. He’s barely cried, and he won’t talk about her, but the light has gone out of him almost completely. He’s far too young, to have lost his whole family. Not even 20 years old, and he’s all alone in this world, except for Bucky. He takes that responsibility so seriously. He’ll be Steve’s family from now on, even if it’s the only good thing he ever does. All Bucky wants for Christmas this year is to see a little bit of that sparkle back in Steve’s sky-blue eyes.  
  
He enters the shop in a cloud of snowflakes, the bell above the door clanging as he hurries to shut it behind him and not let too much of the chill in. The shopkeeper offers him a friendly smile, that Bucky returns, and then sets about on his mission. He browses along the aisles, taking in glitter and lights and cheerful holiday cards. Finally he locates his target – a basket filled with sprigs of mistletoe, tied together with red ribbons. The tag on the shelf below it says 16¢. Not the cheapest thing he could find in the place, but not so outlandish that Steve will completely lose his shit if he manages to needle out of Bucky what it cost. Which he probably will. He’s stubborn as a mule. Secretly, Bucky loves that about him. But catch him dead before admitting that out loud.  
  
He takes it up to the counter, and is greeted with a knowing smile from the shopkeeper. “Anything else?” the man asks.  
  
Bucky shakes his head. “That’s all.”  
  
The man wraps it in paper and secures it with a sticker. He punches at buttons on the register, takes Bucky’s coins, and hands him a few back in change. “Enjoy kissing your sweetheart,” he says, as Bucky nods in thanks and tucks the package into his pocket.  
  
“I will,” he answers.  
  
It seems somehow colder outside when he leaves the shop, even though he was only inside for a few minutes. But Bucky only feels it on the surface. He walks home with a smile tugging at his lips, that he tries (and fails) to hide so he doesn’t look like a lunatic walking along in the snow smiling to himself.  
  
Steve is in the bathroom when Bucky arrives back at their apartment. He can hear the shower running. Bucky shrugs out of his coat, hanging it up on the rack, and resists an urge to strip out of everything else and join Steve in the shower. They’ve never done that before. It’s new, this thing between them, although it’s been building for longer than Bucky even knows. Maybe since the day they met when they were six years old. Maybe since even before that. Bucky’s been longing to kiss him since as far back as he can remember. It was the most terrifying moment of his life, when he finally did. And then the most wonderful moment, when Steve kissed back.  
  
Steve is so beautiful when Bucky has him bare and sweat-dappled and flushed. The way his golden hair falls into his eyes, the freckles on his shoulders, the sweet curve of his back, the sunshine in his smile. Bucky is properly addicted to it, and though he’s never had Steve naked and warm and wet in the shower, he knows without knowing that it would be heavenly.  
  
But he wouldn’t just pounce without asking, much as he might like to. Instead, he heads to the bedroom, tucking the package away in the drawer of the nightstand on his side of the bed, for later. By the time Steve emerges, pink-cheeked and sweet-smelling, Bucky’s in the kitchen getting dinner started.  
  
“Hey, gorgeous,” he says, as Steve comes into the room.  
  
“Hey, Buck,” Steve answers. “How was work?”  
  
“Yeah, it was fine.” He turns down the burner on the stove to let the soup simmer. Then he goes over, approaching Steve slowly and tugging Steve in for a hug when he doesn’t back away. Steve is stiff for a moment, but then he exhales and relaxes, burrowing his nose into Bucky’s shoulder. “Missed you, though.”  
  
“For nine hours?”  
  
“I miss you the second I walk out the door.”  
  
Reluctantly, Steve chuckles.  
  
Bucky counts it as a win.  
  
Later, when Steve is sitting on their living room floor sketching in his book, Bucky puts down the newspaper and gets up off the couch, pretending he’s going to use the toilet. Instead he goes into the bedroom and gets the package. He unwraps it, revealing the green sprigs and the red ribbon, and hangs it with a piece of tape above the door jamb so it hangs down in the empty space.  
  
“Steve?” he calls. “Can you come in here for a sec?”  
  
He hears characteristic grumbling, that makes him smile. “For what? I’m busy.”  
  
Bucky bites the inside of his cheek. “Please?”  
  
More grumbling, but it’s accompanied by the sound of Steve setting his sketchbook down and getting up and traipsing over. “What?” he asks, as he comes into view in the hallway, but then his eyes track upwards and notice the mistletoe. His eyebrows furrow, drawing his forehead into a frown. “What is that?”  
  
Bucky bites the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing, because Steve is especially cute when he’s disgruntled. That’s lucky, because he’s disgruntled a lot of the time. “You know what it is.”  
  
“How did it _get_ there?”  
  
He shrugs. “Not sure. Maybe it was the Spirit of Christmas.”  
  
Steve fixes him with a _look_. “The fictional Spirit of Christmas broke into our home and hung mistletoe above the bedroom door? Some time in the last two hours?”  
  
“It is a season of miracles, Stevie,” Bucky tells him in a serious voice, intending to make Steve laugh again.  
  
Steve just stares at him. Bucky isn’t sure what he was expecting, but Steve isn’t reacting like he’d hoped. He just looks increasingly confused.  
  
Bucky sighs, and shakes his head. “Sorry. Never mind.”  
  
“I don’t understand what’s going on.”  
  
“I know.” Bucky sits on the foot of their bed, hands in his lap, and Steve comes into the room and sits next to him.  
  
They sit in silence for a beat, and then Steve asks, “did I do something wrong?”  
  
“No,” Bucky answers quickly. He reaches out and brushes Steve’s hair out of his eyes. “No, babydoll, of course you didn’t. I just …”  
  
“What?” Steve pushes, gently.  
  
Bucky sighs again, and looks at the floor. “I know you miss her.”  
  
“… oh.”  
  
“And I know you don’t want to talk about it. But it’s Christmas in two days, and … I don’t know. You don’t need to fake being happy for me. You’re allowed to be sad. It just feels like somebody snuffed your light out and I thought maybe this might make you smile. That’s all. But it’s stupid.”  
  
Steve pauses. Then he shifts in a little closer, and leans over so his head is resting on Bucky’s shoulder. “It’s not stupid.”  
  
Bucky lifts his arm and wraps it around Steve, who cuddles into him. This part, isn’t new at all. Since they were boys, Bucky’s been wrapping his arms around Steve, pulling him in, holding him close, burrowing into his warmth. Bucky lied with him all night, once time, when Steve had a disastrously high fever. They’d been 14. Steve had been shivering so violently his teeth chattered, even though to the touch his skin was hotter than the radiators on full blast. Bucky had cradled him, kept him close and warm even as he himself baked and sweated to the point of nausea. Steve never moved from his arms, and in the morning his fever broke and he was alright again. Bucky likes to think that might be the moment he realized he loved Steve in ways he wasn’t supposed to.  
  
“I do miss her,” Steve says.  
  
“I know.”  
  
“But I love you.”  
  
Bucky closes his eyes against an unexpected burst of emotion, and pushes his nose into Steve’s hair. Feeling it isn’t new. Saying it out loud, is. “I know that, too.”  
  
“So, c’mon, then.” Steve pats Bucky’s knee, and stands up, nodding his head sideways toward the door. “I believe I’m owed a kiss.”  
  
“We don’t have to.”  
  
“Why the hell would I ever turn that down?” Steve holds his hand out. “C’mon, if you stand together under mistletoe you have to kiss. Otherwise it’s bad luck.”  
  
Bucky doesn’t think that’s true, but he smiles and takes Steve’s hand anyway, lets Steve pull him over to stand with him, sandwiched together in the doorframe. Bucky takes Steve’s cheeks in his hands, and leans down, pressing their lips together softly. Steve hums into it, wrapping his arms around Bucky’s waist, pressing his body along the line of Bucky’s.  
  
“Merry almost Christmas, Buck.”  
  
Bucky grins, rubs his thumb along the skin under Steve’s left eye, and kisses him again.

**Author's Note:**

> Come talk to me [on tumblr](http://paper-storm.tumblr.com/) [or twitter](https://twitter.com/turningthedials) if you want!


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